Page 122 of The Last Vampire
“I will have to find a hotel room, I suppose.”
The agent frowns with distrust, and William holds his gaze to compel him.Let me through,the vampire commands without speaking.
“Enjoy your stay,” says the agent, frowning in confusion as he hands William back his passport. “Au revoir.”
It is nighttime when he finally leaves the airport. William spots a row of cars and lines up for a ride. “Notre-Dame Cathedral,” he says, then he sits back and surveys Paris after being away for centuries.
Electric streetlights and neon signs illuminate the streets that were once dimly lit by candlelight and stars—the latter of which are now obscured by the city glow. It feels like the past has a stronger hold here than in the United States. Skyscrapers abound, like in New York City, yet the modern glass and steel is juxtaposed with remnants of William’s Paris, like the narrow cobblestone streets and mansard-roofed buildings.
By the time he exits the cab and beholds the cathedral, he feels once more what he felt when he looked upon his old dorm, Massachusetts Hall. Everything else has changed, but these structures remain familiar.
Floodlights make the cathedral look less solemn and more otherworldly than in his day. There have been significant changes to the structure, but it is still undeniably Notre-Dame. The same way a human does not look the same in old age as in youth, but one can still spot the ghost of the child in the man.
On the horizon is what appears to be a lit-up metal structure, and William recognizes it as the Eiffel Tower from the history books he read in the Huntington library. Its likeness is branded on nearly all the merchandise that gets sold here.
“Admiring the modern touches?”
William inhales the vampire’s musk before he sees him. “Lenny?” he asks, taking in the burgundy suit, gold earrings, and groomed mustache.
“Osorio,” he says. “And you must be William.”
“Where is Lenny?”
“You could say I am his gatekeeper. If he decides to meet with someone, I escort them to his lair.”
Lair?
There is a hardness in Osorio’s stare that tells William this is a different kind of vampire from the ones he met in America. Osorio does not bother breathing or blinking for the sake of the mortals around him. He seems as unaware of their existence as humans are of the ants navigating around their shoes.
Osorio ducks into an alley and slips around a corner. William follows. Too quickly for mortal eyes, Osorio removes a grate from the ground and casts a cautionary glance. “After you. Quickly.”
William leaps belowground. He cannot sense the stench now that he has cut off his breathing.
Osorio joins him in the sewers and restores the grate. As William follows the vampire through the tunnel, he recalls how Anne referred to Lenny as a time capsule and how Nate described him as still living in the past. William cannot help wondering how long Lenny has been down here—is this a new hideout, or an old one?
When Osorio stops at a spot in the wall, William spies the outline of a door that would be nearly impossible to discern with human eyes. It is so heavy that even Osorio must make an effort to open it.
“Where are we?” asks William as they access a different tunnel that looks both cleaner and older. He chances a sniff, and even the air is less odorous.
“A place the humans have not yet discovered, built by the vampires of Lenny’s time,” answers Osorio. “They were particularly violent back then, which is why so few survived.”
Lenny sounds much older than most vampires William has ever known. “Why is he down here?”
“He has spent so much time underground that he does not like to venture to the surface. I am his liaison to the world. I provide him with news, supplies, blood—anything he needs.”
William tries to imagine what that must be like. “How has he not been overcome with boredom by now?”
“He has his experiments to keep him busy. He also enjoys his hunts.” At William’s perplexed expression, Osorio clarifies, “I bring him tourists to drain.”
This must be what Nate meant about Lenny still living in the past. “I thought we were all drinking from wineglasses this century.”
“Not Lenny,” says Osorio, sounding like an indulgent uncle. “He only drinks from the vein.”
“Why do you serve him?”
Osorio stops walking. “In the absence of a Stoker, he is the most powerful among us.” After studying William’s face closely, he gestures to the darkness ahead. “Keep going. You will find him.”
Osorio takes off with the speed of a magic trick.
